Morning, Puerto del Mar, Isla Guimaras

Always, there is a hidden cove
in my heart
where all year it is summer
and the rain visits
only when I am desolate.
But this morning,
I am truly at the sea,
swimming by myself in waters
whose lines are clean as a poem.
Perhaps, heaven’s jetway is a shore
with sand as fine and white as the long dresses of angels.
Perhaps the chorus of their voices
is cool and pure as the lapping tongues
of the smallest waves.
How blissful it would be to take my last breath
reclining in the arms of the sea,
wrapped in the warm rays
of a just-risen sun.
But I have many more poems
that I must write.
Poems of love.
Love like the sea,
deep and color-changing,
custodian of such mysteries.

Simbang Gabi

You’ve got to hand it to my mother.
Last night she reminded me
that the nine-day simbang gabi masses begin this advent,
and that if I manage to do the whole thing,
any wish I have will be granted by God.
I know what it is she wants me to pray for—
It’s what she constantly implores,
not caring that her knees have darkened from
her daily supplications, and not just at Christmas time.
I held my tongue and rolled my eyes
but answered simply:If God means to give me something, He will. Could it be
that after all this time, slanted deals are still made in heaven?

To tell the truth, I did not mean to complete
the nine-day masses this year without eventually letting Mother know.
Could it have been because I felt in the crush
of people around me, the weight of a whole world’s
requests: including Mother’s prayer for her still
unmarried daughter to please find someone, including those
praying for the sick, for their enemies, their siblings,
for a business gone bankrupt, for petitions to migrate to Canada or Australia;
prayers to win the lottery, to win even just the parish cake raffle
(which also gives away red scooters and electric fans as door prizes).
But then, in the Jesuit compound my heart went out
to the lowly puto bumbong, because well-dressed churchgoers
were making a beeline for the stands selling churros con chocálate and donuts.

I wanted to tell Mother that my going to simbang gabi
was like the little puffs of steam exuding heavenward from the puto bumbong,
as the moon, austere, kept perfect watch: manifold in even its smallest aspect,
such gratitude as the chance to feel part of the whole, without thought
of having been short-changed, without regret for the concern that others did not show,
without wishing to swap fortunes or even the pains one has been given.
I give thanks for such finitudes that are nevertheless imbued with grace,
for the powdery cone of darkness and its just-enough dusting of sugar,
for the succulent body that will soon disappear.
Faithfully we serve, preparing the feast presided over
by the shadow of Death. And yet, how beguiling! The promise of fullness cupped
and brimful in the mouth.

*

Translator’s notes: Simbang gabi (literal trans., “night masses”): in the Philippines, nine-day masses celebrated at dawn, preceding Christmas. Puto Bumbong: a rice cake traditionally prepared at Christmas time, associated with simbang gabi. People coming from the dawn masses buy them to eat from vendors who set up makeshift stands by the church. The rice cakes are steamed in cones or tubes of bamboo over hot coals; they are dusted with a mixture of coconut flakes and sugar, or sugar alone.

Whatever Abides

Consider how the mind holds
daylight and darkness now with the same
regard, ever since the unexpected guest’s
arrival, its unbetokened entrance– How
it’s come to take up residence in your inner
life, its series of boxes nested and full
of such mortal longings and fears.

None of this is an effect of distance, or the cold
that begins to enfold everything in the landscape in its embrace.
It has nothing to do with the stasis or movement of the hours, nothing
to do with the body’s arrival, exhausted, at the limits of anything
it has had to endure. It has nothing to do with being alone, or being
surrounded by the clamor of children and growing things, or whether or
not the wind is listing its warnings, or the earth its humid and dark
glimmerings.

You know the Beloved has arrived, because even the mouths
of roses are shaped to listening, moving from epiphany
to epiphany. As if miraculously, food appears on the table,
and the cutlery and dishes could just as well dance, suffused
with a sense of grace. The lizard’s tiny call is enough to banish
cobwebs from the windows, and rain washes clean the house’s many eyes.

It’s true, we tempt the fates to take
a capricious delight in the ways we are so bent on walking,
magnetized, in the wake of our own longings. Mumbling our endless
questions without answers, how do we know whether to go right
or left, take smaller or larger steps, take one step at a time, or rush
headlong, all at once, into the yard or back into the kitchen?

There is a moment when even darkness and light are allowed to touch
at their edges. Then light breaks new like warmly risen bread, offering
itself like gratitude or a blessing over the whole city, only to return
home at evening, as if obeying the call to prepare the evening
meal. And between this passing, night and day, the Beloved waits
patiently, speaks to you even in the silence which is its gift,
mysterious joy.

John Iremil E. Teodoro is a Filipino writer, university professor and freelance journalist. He is also a multi-awarded poet and playwright, one of the country’s leading pioneers in gay literature and the most published author in the Karay-a dialect to date. Born to a middle class family in the province of Antique, among Teodoro’s first distinctions were the Literature Grant of the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Gawad Ka Amado in 1993 for his early attempts in Filipino poetry. His first full-length play in Filipino Ang Unang Ulan ng Mayo (The First Rain of May) won 2nd Place in the 1997 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. He writes in four languages, English, Filipino, Hiligaynon and Karay-a. He is a member of the Alon Collective and the Tabig/Hubon Manunulat Antique. His poetry book Kung ang Tula ay Pwedeng Pambili ng Lalake (If Poems Could Buy Men) was shortlisted for the 2007 Manila Critics Circle National Book Award.

Rebecca T. Añonuevo is a poet and author of five collections of poetry, the latest being Kalahati at Umpisa (UST Publishing House, 2008). Other titles are Saulado (UP Press, 2005), Nakatanim na Granada ang Diyos (UST Publishing House, 2001), Pananahan (Talingdao Publishing House, 1999) and Bago ang Babae (Institute of Women’s Studies, 1996). All collections have won numerous awards for poetry from the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. Her study on Philippine literature titled Talinghaga ng Gana: Ang Banal sa mga Piling Tulang Tagalog ng Ika-20 Siglo (UST Publishing House, 2003) won the Gold Medal for Outstanding Dissertation at De La Salle University-Manila and the National Book Award for Literary Criticism from the Manila Critics Circle. She also writes children’s fiction, essays, and reviews. She teaches literature and writing in English, and chairs the Filipino Department at Miriam College in Quezon City. She resides in Pasig City.

Luisa A. Igloria (website) is the author of Juan Luan’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame, Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions, 2005) and eight other books. Luisa has degrees from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she was a Fulbright Fellow from 1992-1995. Originally from Baguio City, she teaches on the faculty of Old Dominion University, where she currently directs the MFA Creative Writing Program. She keeps her radar tuned for cool lizard sightings.

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